If I had come from a land with a humane social-welfare system, it would have been irresponsible to leave when I was in my late 30's and enter a world of black-market labor, doing odd jobs for poor money and accruing no benefits.

But I'm American.

 4 April 2006

_________

If I "have to laugh at myself," then I'll be the one who decides what's funny.

_________

Evolution is occasioned by relatively long series of dormant, back-office development, punctuated with brief periods of go-get-it fall-what-may catalytic peripatetic change and growth.

_________

"If you don't enjoy your own insanity, nobody else will."

 Jim, in Berkeley California, 1997

 from a memory, 4 April, 2006.

_________

Incremental change.

Long-term project.

 4 April 2006

_________

Improved file Dorestad, about a lost medieval Frisian city within modern Netherlands.

 28 March 2006

_________

"In the vernacular."

"The what?"

"Normal language."

"Well, why didn't you just say that?"

_________

"Kfar Darom"  a file I made from a section of this journal, about the Israeli surrender of the Gaza Strip in August of 2005

I took a photograph of the Kilkenny castle; after putting it on the page I'd written years ago, I recognized that the page needed some work. I just finished a cycle of interlinked documents. They still need work, but are functional.

 20 February 2006

_________

Modified page "Enter the Lexicon," allowing it to become a collection of orphan word constructions of a varying and subjectively-valuable quality.

 12 January 2006

_________

"...superheated interstellar dust on the verge of falling into the black hole in the paper presenting their findings." ...

The absence of any mention of global environmental damage in a discussion about the business of oil in AD 2005 makes one conspicuous implication -- that the business of oil does not factor in any responsibility for carbon emissions.

 Letter to the editor of the International Herald Tribune, r.e. an article about a panel-discussion with several industry players [2 December, 2005.]

"News agency ANP reported that Seveke regularly visited the live-in activist centre 'De Grote Broek'. The police have carried out raids at this building and other activist centres in Nijmegen in recent days to remove posters criticising the tough policies of Immigration and Integration Minister Rita Verdonk."

 Expatica.com, 16 November 2005, on the Tuesday (15 Nov.) shooting of political activist Louis Sévèke in downtown Nijmegen.

"'For a short-term political gain we would have expressed outrage' at Mr. Libby, one senior administration official said. 'But if you are going to be serious about the process, and the presumption of innocence, you can't do that.'"

"She said that even though her long career offered enough basis for senators to consider her nomination, 'I am convinced the efforts to obtain executive branch materials and information will continue.'"1

______

In other words, people are going to continue to ask about matters that will be embarassing to the Administration.

_________

"'Harriet Miers's decision [to withdraw her candidacy for Supreme Court Justice] demonstrates her deep respect for this essential aspect of the Constitutional separation of powers - and confirms my deep respect and admiration for her,' the president said."2

A Spanish judge has requested that the United States extradite three soldiers responsible for firing a shell from a tank into Baghdad's Palestine Hotel during the invasion of Iraq.

On the morning of 8 April 2003, Sgt. Shawn Gibson requested permission to fire on the hotel. He said later that he believed an Iraqi operative was coordinating attacks from that site. His commanding officer, Captain Philip Wolford, authorized Gibson to fire.

I was improving the file "Enjoy your meal" and took a break to make a cup of tea, here in my Kilkenny apartment. In the front room were my two flatmates and two of their friends, all Spanish. They were eating.

Because I had been working on that page, and they were eating, I felt like saying something. I said that I hoped they did not think me rude for never saying "enjoy your meal." (This phrase, though unimportant in English, is nearly compulsory in many other European languages.)

I never say "enjoy your meal," because it's not part of my tradition. When I explained this to the Spanish folks, the more-recent arrivals seemed to acknowledge that I did have something to explain, and it seemed to make them feel a bit more comfortable that I had.

_________

Asylum, a page I wrote about my effort to legalize myself in Holland, is pretty good.

"But will that happen? Will one woman's demand to meet the president outside his vacation home be viewed someday as a tipping point against the war?"
 Washington Post, 19 August 2005

_________

I met up with a new aquaintance, a guy from Israel. I was on my way toward the park via the river. He said he was just going to watch Sky news at a pub, that there was a confrontation in the evacuation of the Gaza strip.

We watched a bit of the storming of the synagogue at Kfar Darom. It was a strange sort of raid.

Kfar Darom is the oldest Israeli settlement in the Gaza Strip, founded in 1970.
... "Tearfully but Forcefully, Israel Removes Gaza Settlers"  New York Times, 19 August 2005